In memoriam Johan Frederik (Frits) Staal, November 3, 1930 (Amsterdam, Netherlands) - February 19, 2012 (Chiang Mai, Thailand). 

(son of the architect Jan Frederik Staal, 1879-1940, whose buildings can still bee seen in Amsterdam)

"For once I wanted to show the world what is a Vedic ritual"

("Ik wilde de wereld één keer laten zien wat een vedisch ritueel is", Interview in magazine De Groene Amsterdammer, 1987)

From Louis Renou's review of Staal's Nambudiri Veda Recitation (1961): 

"on obtient des résultats remarquables grace à une description minutieuse combinée avec un don d’interprétation qui organise les faits décrits dans un ensemble cohérent."

Titles of some seminars/workshops to which he contributed in recent years: Fourth International Vedic Workshop, Texas, 2007; Dynamics of Ritual: Grammar of Ritual, Heidelberg, 2008; Aux abords de la Clairière (in honor of Charles Malamoud), Paris, October 2010. 

His last lecture at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, Amsterdam, of which he was member: 11 October 2010 (title: "A Theory of Ritual?"). 

Bibliography (selection)

English

Advaita and Neoplatonism, University of Madras, 1961.

Nambudiri Veda Recitation, The Hague: Mouton, 1961.

Euclid and Panini, Philosophy East and West 15: 99-116, 1965. 

Word Order in Sanskrit and Universal Grammar, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1967.

(with Paul Kiparsky) 

Syntactic and Semantic Relations in Panini, Foundations of Language 5: 83-117, 1969.   

A Reader on the Sanskrit Grammarians, Cambridge Mass.: MIT, 1972.

The Science of Ritual, Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1982.

What is happening in Classical Indology - A Review Article, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. XLI: 269-291, 1982.

(with C. V. Somayajipad and Itti Ravi Nambudiri et al.) 

AGNI - The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar, Vols. I-II, Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1983.

The Fidelity of Oral Tradition and the Origins of Science, Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences/North-Holland, 1987.

Universals. Studies in Indian Logic and Linguistics, Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 1988.

Rules Without Meaning. Ritual, Mantras and the Human Sciences, Peter Lang: New York- Bern-Frankfurt am Main-Paris, 1989.

Concepts of Science in Europe and Asia, Leiden: International Institute of Asian Studies, 1993, 1994.

Mantras between Fire and Water. Reflections on a Balinese Rite, Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences/North-Holland, 1995.

The Sanskrit of Science, Journal of Indian Philosophy 23: 73-127, 1995.

Artificial Languages across Sciences and Civilizations, Journal of Indian Philosophy 34, 2006, 89-141.

The Sound Pattern of Sanskrit in Asia, presentation at Sanskrit in Asia, Bangkok, 2005 (subsequently published in the Journal of the Sanskrit Studies Centre, Silpakorn University, 2 (2006) 193-207; downloaded on 19-02-2012 at https://sites.google.com/a/fritsstaalberkeley.com/staal/curriculum-vitae).

Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights, Penguin Books India, 2008.

to appear or already appeared: Remembering Professor V. Raghavan: ms. finalized August 2008; to be published in Journal of Oriental Research, Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute. 

On the Origins of Zero, Proceedings of the Conference “Topics in the History of Indian and Western Mathematics” at the Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI), February 2008.

German 

Ueber die Idee der Toleranz im Hinduismus, Kairos. Zeitschrift fur Religionswissenschaft und Theologie 1:215-218, 1959. 

French

Jouer avec le feu. Pratique et theorie du rituel vedique, Paris: College de France, 1990.

Dutch

Euclides en Panini. Twee methodische richtlijnen voor de filosofie, Amsterdam: Polak & Van Gennep, 1963. 

Zinvolle en zinloze filosofie, in De Gids, 1967.

Over Zin en Onzin in filosofie, religie en wetenschap, Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1986.

Een Wijsgeer in het Oosten. Op reis door Java en Kalimantan, Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1988.

(with S. A. Bonebakker, E. Gene Smith and H. J. Verkuyl) 

Baby Krishna. Rapport van de Adviescommisie Kleine Letteren ("commissie Staal"), 96 pp., Den Haag (Report on Asian and Minor Languages for the Ministry of Education and Sciences, Government of the Netherlands) 

Drie bergen en zeven rivieren: Essays, Amsterdam: Meulenhoff 2004.

Felicitation volume: 

India and Beyond, ed. by Dick van der Meij, Leiden: IIAS, 1997. 

Bibliography on Frits Staal's home page: 

at

(http://www.fritsstaalberkeley.com/)